Is This A Matter Of Worse Or Of Better?
by myrmidryad
Summary: Maria Stark watches her husband and son snarl at each other like cats and wonders if they'll ever see her standing on the side lines. Because no family does issues like the Starks do. Howard/Maria, parent/child relationships with Howard and Tony, and Maria and Tony. Oneshot. Inspired by The Bed Song by Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra.


Inspired by The Bed Song by Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra, which I recommend listening to - it's freely available on YouTube. The structure of the story and the title are both taken from the song.

* * *

{exhibit a}

"Are you ready?"

She applies lipstick and smacks her lips at her reflection. "Ready."

"Come on, Maria, we need to get going."

They'll be late anyway, she thinks as she takes Howard's hand and allows him to pull her from the room. And he'll drink too much and snore all night. Her headaches the morning after he's kept her up snoring are always agonising, but she doesn't ever suggest that he sleep elsewhere, or that she does. She certainly never tries to wake him up and get him to stop.

Howard's at his best in the mornings anyway. He always kisses her when she complains of her headaches, and gets Jarvis to call the doctor if it's especially bad. It's in the mornings while he's getting dressed in the dark to spare her the pain of the light that she remembers why she married him when she could have had anyone else.

He spins her around just before they get to the car, Jarvis holding the door open and ready, and she laughs delightedly. He smiles when he kisses her, and she sighs, content. He's perfect sometimes. She's always loved his energy. Manic, her mother had said, but even she couldn't fail to be impressed with Howard's boundless zeal, especially concerning the protection of the country. "Nothing better than a patriot," she'd told Maria when they first started seeing each other. "Hang onto this one."

She's done better than hang on, Maria thinks as they drive to the function. She's caught Howard for good, and they're each other's forever now. For better and worse. Richer and poorer. Not that Howard will ever be poor. He'd been poor when he was young, he'd told her. Never again. She's never known anything but wealth, but she admires his drive all the more for that.

Obadiah's there already, and he dutifully takes her hand for the second dance. She's so used to him now that she dances as well with him as with Howard. "You're losing your hair, Obie," she teases.

"Nonsense," he protests as he leads her around the floor, hand warm on her back. "Just stress."

"Howard will have to invent something to regrow hair for you," she smiles, and laughs when he rolls his eyes in exasperation.

"If I can get him to focus on one project for longer than ten minutes, I'll take whatever I can get."

She talks to the host for some time, and finds Peggy afterwards. She likes the serious woman Howard used to work with, and respects both of them for never getting involved with each other. Peggy had been Captain America's girl, and Howard will never stop looking for Captain America. Even now, years after the war's end, he still makes an annual trip to the Arctic Circle to check up on the search. The search that he funds from his own pocket, despite Obadiah's protests.

"Have you seen Mrs Palmer yet?" she asks Peggy. "I think you'd like her."

"She seems very enthusiastic about this, I'll give her that," Peggy's crisp accent is like tart apple after the smooth toffee of the room's American drawl. Maria could listen to her talk all day. "Have you ever considered it?"

"Charity work?" Maria stares at her and shakes her head with a smile. "I don't think so."

"Why not?" Peggy asks. "You surely can't want to spend your whole life trailing after Howard. I'll admit he's brilliant, but no one except Obadiah understands what the hell he's talking about half the time."

Maria wonders sometimes what Peggy would be like if Captain America had survived the war. Would they be married like her and Howard? Would he dance with her at all these functions? Would she smile more? She wishes she had met the man himself. She knows him only from the posters, and how accurate can propaganda be?

Did he drink like Howard? Would he understand what Howard means when he talks about particles and nuclear fission? Would he get along with Obadiah, who never met him either?

Questions that will never be answered aren't worth the time it takes to ask them, Maria's mother always said, and she tries to heed that advice.

Howard snores like a bull when they get home, and it takes hours for Maria to drop off to sleep, the sound drilling into her dreams and grinding under her skull. She wakes with crusty eyes and a splitting headache, but Howard gathers her up in his arms and kisses her sweetly, and it's worth having to stay in bed till noon with Jarvis patiently bringing her glasses of water.

She has tea with Peggy a week later and tucks her hair behind her ear, fingernails painted a dark blue to match her dress. "What sort of charity would I support though?"

Peggy smiles, and her whole face lights up. Maria wishes she was beautiful the way Peggy is – dark and interesting and full of secrets. "Well why restrict yourself? Why not just collect funds and then distribute them to the causes you deem worthiest?"

"That way, I could move onto other things once my work in one area was done," Maria says, and Peggy nods, pleased.

"I know some veterans who could use some help."

Maria puts the idea to Howard, and the night is one of the best she can remember – he's over the moon about it, and calls Obadiah over to see how Stark Industries can help. They each drink quite a lot of champagne, but they're celebrating, so it doesn't matter. Maria ends up drinking most of it anyway, because Howard and Obadiah switch to scotch after the first couple of glasses, and they talk and laugh for hours. Obadiah passes out on the couch, and Maria almost pulls a muscle giggling when Howard colours in Obadiah's bald spot in black marker. They stumble to bed and kiss languidly until they fall asleep, still fully dressed.

x

The Maria Stark Foundation is her baby. She pours her time and will into it the same way Howard pours his into Stark Industries. Obadiah mediates between them, and it all goes well. She calls in a designer and refits one of the spare rooms into her office. She has a large, comfortable couch put in there, and when she falls asleep in there after a long day, if Howard notices that it coincides with the days when he drinks more than usual, he doesn't say anything.

They're popular and rich, and their life is everything Maria wanted it to be. They dance at functions and meet important people, Howard designs weapons and various other things she doesn't understand for the government and the military, and she helps the people his wars leave behind, hurt and alone.

There is no symbolism in their respective careers at all.

x

Howard talks about the children of the future all the time, usually as a sales pitch, but he doesn't seem to be in any hurry to actually have any children of his own. They've been married for four years, and every time Maria sees her parents, her mother asks when she'll have the grandchildren she wants so badly. She's not getting any younger, she reminds Maria, gesturing to her white hair and wrinkled hands. She wants to hold the baby before she dies.

Howard dismisses it when she brings it up one night. "Kids?" he laughs, stroking her hair. "You really want kids?"

"Don't you?" she asks, shocked.

"Oh sure," he says, and of course it's no big deal to him – _he_ wouldn't be dealing with the child, after all, "but now? I mean, is now really the best time?"

"You mean because of the contract?" Howard's negotiating a difficult contract with a company in Europe. Obadiah wants him to pull out because there's the possibility of communist affiliations in the European company's board of directors, but Howard won't be put off.

"Yeah. And you've got that big ball coming up next year. I mean, you've been talking of nothing else for weeks. Getting pregnant now would make getting a dress much harder." He winks, and she laughs, relaxing. Now is a bad time, she admits to herself. Maybe after the ball, and after Howard's contract has been figured out or fallen through. Her mother will live forever if there's the promise of grandchildren in the future.

x

Anton Vanko's wife is called Zhanna. She's very blonde, and very Russian, but Maria makes an effort to get along with her for Howard's sake. Anton is working with Howard on his arc reactor, and this is something Maria's actually passingly interested in. Howard says that when they complete this project, Russia and the states will forget all about trivial nuclear weapons. Energy is the way forward, pure and clean and freely available to everyone to usher in a new age of scientific development and open minded thinking. He talks wistfully about how much Steve would have approved. She and Howard entertain Anton and Zhanna at their house, where Jarvis serves them dinner in the garden, and while Howard and Anton bat ideas back and forth, she and Zhanna listen and occasionally comment when the conversation turns to something they all understand, like politics.

Maria helps Zhanna learn the language, and Zhanna tells her in bits and pieces in bad, stitched-together scraps of heavily-accented English of her hopes and dreams for their future. "Stark and Vanko together," she says proudly, eyes sparkling at the thought, "our children working together as their fathers do." She has a son only a year after they arrive, and she and Anton call him Ivan. Zhanna asks Maria to be his godmother, and Maria is delighted to accept.

Her mother makes pointed gestures towards the boy whenever they meet, but Maria and Howard have agreed to hold off on the children for a while yet. Neither of them need the distraction right now. "It's alright for Zhanna," she tells her mother, "she has nothing she'd rather do than coddle Ivan. But I have the Foundation to think of." After all, entertaining Russians at all in this climate is risky business. Maria's working herself to the bone to assure people that Anton is on their side, and that Howard's as far from a commie as it's possible to get. Between her and Obadiah, any suspicions that fall on Howard don't last for long. All the same, when Howard comes home one day to tell her that the whole Vanko family has been deported, she has to sit down.

"What happened?" she asks, struck dumb with shock.

"He was in it for the money," Howard is as quiet as she is for once, hurt and betrayed by the revelation. "It was always for the money."

Maria can only think of Zhanna's innocent dreams of their futures together, godmothers to each other's children, their families united by their husbands' arc reactor. "Poor Zhanna," she murmurs. Poor Ivan as well. He's only three years old. What will happen to them in Russia? Will they even be able to go back there now?

"Zhanna?" Howard shakes his head and goes to the door. "Jarvis!" he'll ask for a drink, she already knows. "Zhanna?" he says again, snorting. "What about the reactor? This was going to change the world! Why couldn't he see that? Why couldn't he understand?" he sinks onto the couch opposite her as Jarvis appears in the door.

"Yes, sir?"

"I need a drink, Jarvis."

"Would you like me to bring the –"

"Bring me the bottle, Jarvis. And a glass. And some ice."

"Yes, sir. Anything for you, Mrs Stark?"

"Bring me a glass as well, please, Jarvis," she says quietly. Howard gives her a surprised look and she shrugs as Jarvis leaves, silent as a shadow. She feels tired, and very old all of a sudden. "Sometimes I need a drink too."

They don't clink their glasses together or toast to the future. They drink in silence and mourn a future that doesn't exist anymore. But while she knows Howard is thinking of how to continue the arc reactor project with only half of the ideas he needs, Maria thinks of her godson, and wonders whether he'll ever meet her own children in the future. She wonders if Zhanna will survive – she's a frail creature – and later in the night she weeps while Howard snores into the pillow, both of them too drunk to undress themselves.

{exhibit b}

Howard makes some sort of breakthrough with the arc reactor, but just as fast as she begins to hope that the project will be over soon, he erupts into some sort of fury and locks himself in his study for a week. He won't see anyone but Jarvis, and Maria has to get the news from Obadiah.

"It's not going to work," he explains to her. "The arc reactor isn't sustainable. I've been telling him for months, but he was sure he could make it work. He keeps talking about limited technology, how it'll be different in the future, and he doesn't have time for everyone to catch up," he sighs and looks down at her, and from this angle she can't see his bald patch, but she can see the way his hairline is receding. Their time in this world is so limited.

"If Anton was still here, would he be able to make it work?" she asks quietly. Neither of them flinch as they hear Howard smash something in his study. They're used to his temper.

"Maybe," Obadiah shakes his head, "we'll never know now."

Things are worse than they've ever been for a while. Howard is incensed, and leaves early for his annual check of the search for Captain America's body. When he gets back, he is calmer. He kisses her slowly and tells her he missed her. They make love in the living room, on the couch and on the floor, and he takes the time and puts in the effort to make her come. She appreciates it, and they hold each other in the dim light, safe in the knowledge that Jarvis has been dismissed for the night. It's warm, and cosy.

"I love you," she tells him, kissing the corner of his mouth. His moustache is a familiar sensation against her lips, and he smiles at her.

"I love you too."

He's ready, he tells her. Maria's mother is overjoyed when they tell her the news, and Maria's glad they've decided to do this now, because her father is dead and her mother doesn't look like she'll be able to hold out for much longer. The birth is difficult, a horrific struggle that lasts over twenty four hours and makes her lose her voice from screaming. She had expected labour to be easier than this. Howard goes with her to the hospital, but when it becomes clear that the process will take a long time, he makes an excuse and slips away. She doesn't grudge him, not really. It's old-fashioned of her, but she prefers going through it with no men around. The nurses do far more than the doctor ever does, and the midwife is a sturdy woman who isn't afraid to shout at her.

Maria's never felt so humble, confined to one room in a row of dozens of others where other women are going through exactly the same thing she is. She overhears two young nurses in the corridor call her a rich snob who thinks she can throw money at any problem to make it go away. "Try that with a baby!" one of them laughs, and Maria clenches her fists and groans when another contraction rips through her. She'll prove them wrong, she decides fiercely. She's not just a rich snob. She's Maria Stark. She knows exactly how to make people eat their words where she's concerned. How long have people looked at her as Howard's trophy wife until she invites them cordially to her charity events and shows them what a little money in the right places can do? She _helps_ people, damn it. She doesn't have to stoop to petty insults and rivalries.

Her thoughts turn to dust and blow away as the labour goes on and on, hour after hour of screaming and crying for the pain to stop. She wants to die, she wants to kill Howard for ever suggesting this, she wants to cut herself off from the breasts down. Of course, by this point the pain is everywhere, so even that wouldn't make any difference.

Finally, _finally_, the baby is born, and although she's too tired to cry properly, tears fall in silent streams from the corners of her eyes when they put a hot bundle of blankets in her arms and a tiny face looks out at her, a thatch of dark hair on a soft head, mouth trembling and ready to cry again. "It's a boy," the midwife tells her.

"I know," she whispers. They're the last words she'll speak for a week.

Anthony Edward Stark is the boy she and Howard both knew they'd have. But until he starts to be more than a screaming, shitting, squirming lump of flesh, Howard isn't interested. For the first couple of weeks, Maria is bedridden, and Jarvis does the majority of the child care. She can barely sit up for the first week after the birth. She sleeps in one of the spare rooms, because she needs to spread out and sleep for long, long hours, and she can't do that if Howard's stumbling in late at night and snoring her into a morning migraine. She bleeds for days, and the lingering pain is terrible. Breech births are the most difficult, Jarvis tells her as he eases little Tony into her arms. She leans against the pillows and is too tired to even be embarrassed that she's baring her breasts to the butler.

Tony is beautiful. He's charming and delightful and she knows she would throw herself in front of a nuclear warhead to save his life. Tony is also difficult. He cries, he wriggles, he won't be held or cuddled. He makes her want to cry for days. She can't bring herself to get out of bed even when she gets better and stops bleeding. She drifts from her bed to the bathroom, and that's it. She's so _tired_ all the time. Jarvis brings her food on trays, which she picks at and sends away, barely touched. Her hair becomes lank and greasy, and she doesn't see Howard for days at a time. She keeps seeing Tony. He needs breast milk, after all, and she is his mother.

"I'm your mommy," she whispers to his tiny face and scrunched-up fists, and cries because her nipples are raw and cracked, and Tony frets if he tastes any ointment when he feeds, so she can only use it sparingly, because he needs her milk still.

It's about the only thing he does need her for, and Jarvis is already talking of weaning him onto formula as soon as possible. She knows he's doing it because he knows how much it hurts her when Tony feeds, but she still feels like a failure. It's like the nurses said in the corridor outside her room – she can't throw money at this problem to make it go away. She can't call in favours from decorators and florists and caterers. She can't talk to anyone else.

A month after Tony's birth, her mother arrives and hobbles into her bedroom, ordering Jarvis to throw the curtains wide. She ignores Maria's protests that she has a headache, that she's too tired, that she needs to rest, and only relents enough to let Jarvis find the wheelchair she'd been taken away from the hospital in. "It's a lovely day," she snaps, "very warm, especially for June. You need a bit of air, not the same stuff you've been breathing for a month in that room."

"I like it in there," Maria protests. It's warm in bed; she can drift comfortably between the hard edge of reality and the soft world of dreams.

"You'll like it out here too," her mother insists, and nods for Jarvis to wheel her outside into the garden. The breeze is shockingly cool, and the world is so bright that Maria has to close her eyes for a moment. "There," her mother lowers herself into a chair Jarvis brings for her. "Ah, that's better. Thank you so much, Jarvis. Tea would be lovely."

"Of course, Mrs Carbonell."

"Don't you want to see Tony?" Maria asks, opening her eyes a sliver. The garden is so green after the muted beiges of her room, it almost doesn't look real.

"Time for that later, I'm not in the grave just yet," her mother takes her hand and sighs. "Where's Howard?"

"Work," Maria says.

"I see. So, Maria – what's it like being a mommy?"

Maria looks at her mother, white-haired and old and fragile as a baby bird, so obviously stronger than Maria will ever be, and she bursts into tears.

There are still bad days. Her mother dies just before Thanksgiving, but she leaves a letter that says that she was ready to go – she'd held her grandson, and that was all she wanted. Maria locks the letter in her bureau and goes on with her life. Howard is still working on the arc reactor project, but now there's something else he's involved in, some sort of security force he calls the Division. Maria knows that Peggy's involved, and a man called Fury, but that's about it. She puts it from her mind and focuses on the important things – Tony, and the Foundation.

The Foundation has not held up as well as she would have liked while she's been away. She needs to make arrangements for the future when she'll no longer be as directly involved as she currently is. The work makes her stronger. She takes care of her appearance again, and takes pride in throwing a big party to celebrate Tony's birth. For once, he doesn't cry, and Howard holds him and shows him off to everyone else there. They all coo and say that he takes after his father, and Maria watches and accepts all of the compliments with grace. This is her world, and she feels good as she settles back into it.

Tony is another matter entirely.

Being born breech seems to have been some sort of omen. He certainly hits the ground running. He advances far faster than babies usually do, according to Jarvis and the number of books on the subject she's received as presents. But he begins to stop crying as much, and he lets her pick him up and show him things out of his reach, and she lets him take the remote control apart, and for that he lets her cuddle and kiss him when the urge takes her.

Howard keeps working on the arc reactor at the same time as he helps to form this Division, which Maria hears referred to as SHIELD every now and then. They start to sleep in the same room again, and she invests in ear plugs that don't work well enough to stop his snoring giving her headaches in the morning. They both watch Tony as he builds towering structures out of his blocks and crafts a paper aeroplane that flies steadily for metres when launched from the device he creates out of pencils and glue and rubber bands. While Howard watches with approval that he never actually shows in front of Tony, Maria can't help but be confused as Tony draws away from her. The way he radiates disbelief when she can't explain exactly how electricity works breaks her heart, and she knows that he's always going to be more Howard's son than hers, though Howard himself never seems to see that.

{exhibit c}

"What're the results?" Howard asks, impatient. His tie is loose, top buttons on his shirt undone, and his breath smells of whiskey. Maria's heart sinks at the thought of another night of snoring.

"They were fine, Howard. Do you want to see? He's going to be –"

"But is he _smart?_"

Maria is suddenly outraged, her exhaustion and Howard's lack of manners or concern for her own state provoking her usually dormant temper into action. "Is that all that matters? Is that all that's important to you, how clever he is?"

"Well is he?"

She takes a deep breath – she can see the way this will go if she retaliates, if she lets herself lose her temper and demand to know why it matters. Tony shouldn't need to be a genius to deserve his father's love and attention, but he does. He might have Howard's love, or a shade of it, but his attention is far harder to get, especially these days. She wants to scream at Howard for once, to remind him that she's not a fool; that not knowing how a nuclear bomb works down to the splitting of the atom doesn't mean that she's stupid, and Tony wouldn't be an idiot if he took after her instead of Howard.

Of course, Howard would consider him stupid if he did take after her. She already knows that he thinks she's too dumb to keep up with him. She could bring this up. They could shout at each other. They could scream and accuse and throw objects at the walls and slam doors, but what would that achieve, really?

She sees the furious, deafening argument play out in her head in the space of a second – and she shakes her head instead, looking at the floor and sighing.

"Well?" Howard asks again, impatient. "Is he smart?"

"He's smart," she tells him flatly. As if they didn't already know. "The results are on the table." She turns away and leaves the room. She goes to Tony's bedroom, and when she can't find him in there, she looks until she finds him. He's in the drawing room, frown on his tiny face as he tinkers with the mechanical train set that's his current favourite toy. His tongue pokes out from the side of his mouth as he concentrates, and Maria won't ask where he got the tools or how he knows what he's doing. She watches in silence as Tony works on, ignorant of the fact that he's being observed. He'll learn soon enough that his every move will be watched because of who he is and how smart he's turning out to be.

Howard will be pleased with the results. Tony's not just smart – his mental activity is very advanced for a child of his age. His predicted IQ is over 150. Right now, Maria wishes that Tony was normal like her. She doesn't want Tony to be anything like Howard. Of course, it looks like it's already too late.

x

She must be so proud of her two men. She must be so proud of her husband the businessman and her son the little genius. She must be so thrilled to be part of their lives.

Maria smiles and thanks the people who compliment her absent husband and her toddler son, and makes sure everyone has drinks. She catches Obadiah's eye across the room and goes over to say hello. "Where's Howard?" she says instead.

"Caught up at the office," he smiles ruefully and offers her his hand. "I know I'm a poor substitute, but I'll do for a while."

"Can I tell you a secret?" she smiles, effortlessly charming. He leans close as she draws him onto the dance floor and she whispers into his ear. "By now, you're a better dancer than he'll ever be." They both laugh, and he whirls her around the room.

Sometimes it feels like she's constantly dancing from one man in her life to another.

Tony's terrifyingly clever. He asks questions she can't answer, and when he stops bothering to come to her she turns to arranging a tour of visits to underprivileged schools in the Midwest to take her mind off the pain. She can't give him the answers he seeks because she's not smart enough, and Howard won't help him because he's either too busy or he wants to test their child.

Obadiah bounces Tony on his knee and gives him a chemistry set meant for high school students for his birthday. Tony masters it in hours and completes the list of experiments that goes with it in a day. When he uses it to create some sort of magnet gun by melting and bending different bits of metal together, Howard points out that Obadiah got him a chemistry set, not an engineering kit. Tony is mortified, and the gun goes in the trash.

When Maria asks him why he never praises Tony's efforts, Howard says that if he's indulged, Tony will grow up rich and lazy, with no drive to do anything new. He needs to be better than that. Howard's motivation was the memory of his childhood poverty. Tony will need something much stronger than that to get his ass in gear. Tony's only four, and Howard's already grooming him to take over the company one day.

There's no question of Tony following her path instead, and Maria closes her eyes and gets Jarvis to order her some valium to help her sleep at night. Tony stays up late building devices she can't understand, and Howard lets him. She wields no authority over either of them, so she immerses herself in the Foundation instead, because people actually listen to her then. She has the connections to organise a ball in weeks flat. She knows the best caterers and florists on each coast by name. She walks into a venue, turns around once, and calls out colours and patterns, and people listen to her. Her suggestions are accepted and added to and enhanced, and hardly ever challenged because everyone knows that Maria Stark throws the most glamorous parties. Everyone who's anyone covets an invitation to her annual Foundation ball.

She's the centre of the world when she's doing work for the Foundation. She's important. And that matters to her.

x

Jarvis teaches Tony at home until he's old enough to go to boarding school. When he's four, he builds his first circuit board without any help or supervision. When he presents it to Howard and Maria at supper one night, Howard looks it over and nods slowly. "Not bad," he says. "I'll call some people."

"Some people?" Maria looks at him.

"Press," he holds his glass out and Jarvis dutifully tops it up. "Tony Stark builds his first circuit board – makes a good headline." They look at Tony, who beams. She smiles, pleased that he's happy. They both stop when Howard clears his throat pointedly. "Can you read and write yet, Tony?"

Tony glances at her and bites his lip. Maria looks at Jarvis, who steps in gracefully. "Master Tony is in the process of learning his alphabet, sir."

"His _alphabet?_" Howard turns a supremely disdainful gaze on Tony, who shrinks in his seat at the same time as he tries to sit up straight. Maria opens her mouth, but Howard gets there first. "Your alphabet is useless unless you can actually use it, boy. You can't show anyone your circuit board until you can write your name, you understand?"

"Okay," Tony nods and looks down at his plate.

Maria tries to rescue him. "You can count, can't you, Tony?"

He looks up and grins. "Uh huh! Numbers are easy!"

"What's twenty-two times thirty-nine?" Howard asks lazily, draining his glass in one gulp. Jarvis refills it when he gestures.

Tony pauses. "Uh…"

"Take your time," Maria tells him. Howard thumps the table and they both jump.

"Time is precious! Can you do it or can't you?"

"I can!" Tony says desperately. He closes his eyes, and Maria sees his fingers twitch under the table. "It's…it's, um…"

"I'm waiting," Howard rolls his eyes. "Don't worry, it's not like this is basic math or anything."

"Eight hundred and fifty-eight!" Tony proclaims, and looks at his father for confirmation.

"Took you long enough," Howard snorts. "Now get to work on your name, okay?"

"I will," Tony promises, and Maria sighs and eats her pork. She wishes she could take Tony aside and explain that they see Howard at his worst; that he's not always like this. He's calmer after he comes back from the Arctic. Sometimes he still kisses her in the mornings, and he always turns up to the annual Foundation ball. But in the evenings, there's usually no reasoning with him.

But Tony's too young to understand this, even though he can build a circuit board without being able to write his own name. He knows wires and metal and the way things fit together, but he can't comprehend Howard's complicated motivations concerning his upbringing. One day he might understand. Maybe one day they'll sit around a table with Tony as the company director instead of Howard, and they'll be able to joke and laugh and talk about things like sports.

Maria tries not to think about what her baby books said about the childhood being the most important time in a person's life, and turns away when she overhears Tony crying to Jarvis because he can't get his k's the right way round. In bed she touches Howard's shoulder as he sleeps. It's warm and smooth still, and she closes her eyes and remembers a night they made love in the living room. They haven't had sex since Tony was born.

She doesn't remember how it goes anymore. She's afraid to try again in case she fails and Howard looks at her the way he looks at Tony.

{exhibit d}

Tony goes to boarding school and excels. Maria hears about his successes through his report cards. Howard reads them carefully and always remembers what Tony's not doing so well in so that when they see each other, he can point it out. Tony stops coming home for long weekends, and they only see him in the holidays.

In term time, Maria works on various charity events and entertains any guests Howard needs to impress or intimidate. They can sit opposite one another at a table of sharp-suited executives and play off each other like they did in the old days. They quote famous philosophers and she plays the part of the beautiful, clever wife to perfection. She and Howard are a wonderful team when they need to be, but it doesn't hold up after the guests are gone and the table is cleared.

The Stark Expo is a huge success, but Howard's still not happy, and he works longer hours until he exhausts himself. Maria listens to him snore and looks over at his profile in the dark. They don't talk to each other anymore. They have nothing to say.

x

Howard pays for a workshop to be installed in one of the garages so that Tony can work when he's home. He builds his first engine and Howard calls the press. He takes a new Apple computer apart and makes a new one with twice the memory power and the ability to do far more than play ping pong on the screen. Howard spares it a passing glance and tells him to double the memory power again and give it the ability to control something outside of its own processor.

Tony remodels it and creates a program that allows him to change the channel on every television set in the house from the basement. Howard scoffs and tells him that turning the computer into a glorified remote control isn't something he considers to be impressive. Tony builds a robot and makes it zip around the workshop by commanding its actions from the newly remodelled computer. Howard stands on it by 'accident', completely destroying the outer shell. Tony presents them with a tougher model that can flip upside down and still move around on its wheels, and Maria pretends not to see his red eyes as Howard asks witheringly how it deals with stairs.

Tony goes back to school when each holiday ends and Maria is both relieved and upset that he doesn't ever say goodbye. She wouldn't know what to say to him. She wants to tell him that she loves him, but she just doesn't _understand_ him.

She finds a pair of panties, black and sexy, tucked into the pocket of Howard's jacket. They're certainly not hers. She isn't sure what to do, and she doesn't even particularly care. She's just tired. She doesn't know how to bring it up, so she leaves them where they are and stays silent. She reads proposals from charities asking for funds from the Foundation while Howard brushes his teeth and doesn't complain when he switches off the lights, even though she hasn't put the papers down or taken off her glasses. The argument a protest would cause isn't worth the effort, so she just sighs and waits for her eyes to adjust before she puts the proposals on the floor, leaves her glasses on the table next to her pillow, and waits for Howard to start snoring.

She's given up on earplugs.

x

Obadiah plays the piano beautifully when he brings bad news to the house. Maria leans against the wall around the corner and listens as Howard grows increasingly angry at the letter Obadiah's given him. She hears him yell for Jarvis, who nods to her as he bustles past, bottle of bourbon already in his hands. When he comes back her way she touches his arm. She doesn't have to vocalise the question, and Jarvis sighs.

"It appears that Master Tony has incurred the wrath of his teachers in several subjects," he tells her slowly.

"Math and science?" she guesses, and he nods.

"He sleeps through his classes, and when called on to demonstrate his intellect in one lesson, he took over the class and taught them some advanced chemistry. They created some sort of explosion in the laboratory. Some equipment needs to be replaced, and the teacher has called for Master Tony's expulsion."

"Of course he has," Maria sighs, "thank you, Jarvis."

Howard doesn't come to bed that night. She goes to California to attend a ball one of her friends is throwing for underprivileged children in Europe and misses Tony when he comes home, temporarily suspended, but not expelled. She comes back just in time to see him off. She doesn't ask about the fury in his eyes or the tightly wound anger in Howard's voice. She touches Howard's hand as Tony gets into the car with Jarvis, suitcase in hand, but Howard jerks away and stalks inside.

She watches the car pull away and goes to find Howard afterwards. "What?" he asks when he sees her in the doorway of his study. "Maria, unless it's important, I can't hear it right now. Obie's on his way, and we need to work on this presentation for the Pentagon."

She opens her mouth with accusing words on her lips, words like _pressure_ and phrases like _pushing him too hard_. She sees the way Howard will react with sharp words and a raised voice and the imagined conversation flashes through her head – a frustrated outpouring that will solve nothing and could ruin everything – and she says, "I've been thinking of setting up a scholarship program for the Foundation."

Howard closes his eyes in an obvious effort to stop himself rolling them. "Maria, talk to Obie, okay? I'm busy. Unless you're bringing me a drink, I don't want to see you right now. I don't want to see anyone. This presentation needs to bring the damn house down, and I can't concentrate on it if I'm getting interrupted by you."

She leaves in silence and lets him work on his presentation. When she next sees Obadiah, she sets up a meeting with him. Between them they figure out a rough idea for a scholarship program. He's insistent that it should focus on science and engineering students. "They're the ones who'll be building the future, after all," he says, "and it looks good for you two – Starks for science, and all that."

It takes months for it to go through, but the satisfaction she feels when she's done is the best thing she's felt in years. It fades quickly when Howard says nothing, even when it appears on the front page of the paper. They're in the photo on the front – it's from one of the annual Foundation balls, and they're standing with linked arms and big smiles for the cameras, because if there's one thing Starks are good at, it's acting happy for the press. Howard doesn't seem to see it at all, and Maria pushes her breakfast away and leaves the table. He doesn't even notice.

When Tony gets into MIT, Maria throws a party to celebrate, because that's the one thing she knows she's good at. Everyone except Tony and Howard enjoys it, and their fake smiles and obvious distaste for the people she's invited makes her want to throw herself to the floor in despair. They're so similar that she wants to scream at them. They're blind to each other's good qualities, always finding the worst traits in the other. They couldn't be more different. They stand next to each other and it's obvious to everyone that they're father and son.

She gets Tony diamond cufflinks as a congratulations present. He says, "Thanks, mom," and she finds them still in their box in his bedroom after he's left. Because even if they hate each other, he still cares more about Howard. Howard gives him nothing but cutting remarks and disdainful looks, and they circle each other like snarling cats while Maria watches on helplessly, and they don't see her at all. She thinks that Howard has gone past seeing her and has forgotten her completely, and she can only hope that Tony will see her before they grow too far apart for any kind of reconciliation. She's just not worth their attention. These men she loves who will never see her or value what she does for them and for the world. Howard pins his desperate, angry hopes for the future on his errant son, and Tony does everything but carve up the moon to try and impress his sneering father, but neither of them can look away from each other long enough to see her on the side lines. They hurl formulas and computer programs at each other like bullets, and Maria isn't sure if they would see her even if she was killed in the crossfire.

Peggy invites her and Howard to a small party before she leaves for England. She doesn't plan to return. Howard doesn't go to the Arctic Circle every year the way he used to, and he avoids Peggy diligently throughout the evening. "Will you be alright?" Peggy asks Maria before she leaves with him. Her eyes are calm and her voice is serious. Her accent is as clipped and fresh as it always was, despite having spent most of her life in the states. Her attention is focused entirely on Maria, and it's a strange sensation that Maria hasn't felt for so long, but she pulls on her smile and tosses her hair back from her face.

"Oh, I'll be fine, Peggy! Why ever wouldn't I be?"

Peggy looks over her shoulder, where Maria knows Howard is waiting impatiently. "If you need to talk," she says quietly, kindly, "I'm only a phone call away. It doesn't matter what for. You don't need an excuse."

Maria's smile deflates slightly into something more real, and she hugs Peggy for a long moment. The physical contact is like an electric shock. She can't remember the last time she hugged anyone with any real affection.

"Maria!" Howard calls, and they pull apart reluctantly.

"You'll call?" Peggy gives her a severe look, and Maria smiles. A real smile, something she hasn't felt on her face for so long that it feels alien and strange.

"I'll call."

She looks over at Howard in the backseat of the car as they're driven back to the house by their chauffer, and tries to imagine leaning her head on his shoulder the way she used to. She has no idea how he might react. He might put an arm around her and pull her closer. He might do nothing. He might stare at her and inch away.

She can't bring herself to find out, so she looks out of the window instead, and they stay on their separate sides of the car in silence, the way they sleep on their separate sides of the bed at night, with only Howard's snoring disturbing the quiet.

{exhibit e}

Tony graduates _summa cum laude_ from MIT just a couple of months after he turns seventeen. Maria and Howard both attend the graduation ceremony, and she realises as she sits on the uncomfortable wooden chair that she has never seen Tony move among his own peers. He's different – more relaxed and more vicious than she had expected. He's like an adolescent tiger, ready and willing to strike if provoked, and lashing out with what obviously isn't his full strength just to show people what he could do if he _really_ wanted to. When he attends the parties she throws while he's home for the holidays, he's more guarded and polite. With her and Howard at their tense family meals, he's sullen and shockingly arrogant by turns.

Watching him swagger up on stage to accept his diploma, she knows that he is fully aware of how brilliant he is, and he's been trained to prove himself brutally since day one by Howard. It's a fitting lesson for the world he's been unleashed into. His classmates orbit him cautiously. A few earn his smiles and call him Tony. Most call him Stark and treat him with a mixture of annoyance and admiration. A very small minority scowl at his back and mutter under their breaths whenever he passes. He's something of a class joker, it's obvious. Startlingly bright, horrifyingly precocious, the sort of student teachers loathe and fellow students follow.

She looks at Howard and wonders if he'll ever let Tony see the satisfied pride in his eyes that shines just brightly enough for her to glimpse as their genius son grins to the crowd and tips his graduation cap to the ladies in his class. It's gone by the time they find him, pushed down where Tony will never see it.

"How's that for brains, old man?" he asks Howard brazenly, grin wide and eyes flashing with a challenge. "You're looking at the youngest student to graduate _summa cum laude_ from MIT _ever_."

"I'd be more impressed if your so-called award-winning robot could do more than pick up a pen and scribble some pre-programmed nonsense," Howard replies cuttingly. Tony bristles, and Maria slides between them slightly.

"I think that's Jennifer over there, don't you, Howard?"

"Jenny Towers?" Howard turns to check that it's the reporter from MIT's Technology Review. "Hell, she'll want an interview for sure."

"I already gave her one," Tony says, offhand, and Howard's face begins to purple dangerously.

"You _what?_"

"I cleared it with my professors. Article should come out this week, actually – you'll like it. She'll mention you a lot, of course. Tony Stark – son of the great weapons engineer Howard Stark," he rolls his eyes. "Doesn't matter. Dummy speaks for himself."

"Dummy?" Maria looks at him, and he shrugs and smiles, dropping the swagger for a precious second.

"My robot. It was the first thing that came into my head. I was pretty out of it."

"You shouldn't be drinking," Howard says stiffly, and Tony laughs. To anyone from the outside, it must look like he gets along fantastically with his famous parents.

"_I_ shouldn't be drinking?" Tony snorts, shaking his head and waving to Jennifer Towers as they walk past her. "Wow, dad, I don't think you're the right person to be lecturing me on the dangers of alcohol. I mean, how many bottles do you get through a week?"

"You watch your mouth, kid," Howard snaps. Maria doesn't dare admonish either of them, but she does turn Howard in the direction of a couple they know. Tony slips away to talk to some of his classmates, and as she makes small talk with Mrs Jacobs and keeps an eye on the ugly colour leaving Howard's face, she thinks of how different Tony is in an environment he's comfortable in compared to the way he behaves when he's at home.

She thinks of Howard when she first met him, always there with a smile and a wink, soft and easy around the edges and always ready to roll with the punches. He always moved so gracefully. It was one of the things she had first loved about him. He bounced in place like an enthusiastic dog, proud as punch of whatever he'd created last. He swayed and danced with smooth, reeling movements, almost sloppy, but always precise at the last moment.

Watching Tony now, she sees that he moves with swift, jerky motions. His smile is a sharp thing, his fingers illustrating something in the air, some part of him always moving, always on the edge of springing into action. A girl an inch taller than him sashays over and winks at him. He pulls her into his arms and kisses her dramatically, bending her over backwards and getting shocked gasps from her parents. Maria doesn't miss the look he tosses her and Howard over his shoulder, expression hard and defiant. He's making a point. He doesn't need them. He doesn't want them.

Howard sees and laughs, and Maria sees Tony's cheeks colour before he turns away and starts talking animatedly to two other boys. She can hear the tone of his voice from here – it's low and darkly amused, and when the other boys crack up and they all look over at a tall, blonde boy, who blushes furiously when he realises that he's the object of their mirth, Tony sticks his hands in his pockets and grins unabashedly. He's cruel, she sees suddenly, and the revelation hurts more than she would have expected, because it is too late now.

Howard has beaten him into this shape, razor-edged and ambitious, always craving the recognition he never received at home. He'll end up chasing it for years before he realises that it's a shadow Howard planted in his path, and by then it might be too late for him to change.

Obadiah appears from somewhere and Tony laughs and hugs him, grinning when the older man slaps his shoulder and congratulates him on his prize-winning robot. Maria wants to ask Howard if it bothers him, that their son gives the affection he should give to them to Obadiah because Howard has always pushed him away. Of course, she says no such thing, and when Howard doesn't protest Tony riding back to the house with Obadiah, she says nothing then either. Their ride back to New York is silent and sad, but she's used to it by now. It's as familiar as the wallpaper in the dining room where Howard and Tony snipe at each other over dinner, as normal as the space in the middle of the bed she and Howard never touch.

They have a business meeting with a politician and his new wife on the next morning. Maria sees Tony in the pool from her window as she gets ready. One day he'll fill out, but for now his face and chest are still hairless, and he still carries a wiry adolescent frame. Jarvis knocks on the open door just as she fixes a string of pearls around her neck. "The car is ready, Mrs Stark," he tells her, and she smiles.

"Thank you, Jarvis. I'll be right out." She thinks of the gala she's been asked to attend in Manhattan next week, a function to draw attention to the plight of war orphans. Organised properly, she thinks that an investment might pay off quite well. Her presence alone will get the host a little bit more press, which is essential for what is currently a small charity. As she gets into the car and waits for Howard, she makes a mental note to call Peggy soon, perhaps as soon as she gets back this evening. Seeing Tony at his graduation ceremony has shocked her, and she would like some advice on how to approach the situation from someone she trusts. Maybe it isn't too late, even now. Maybe there will be time to let Tony know that they do love him. Maybe, given time, he will learn to love them back.

Howard slides in next to her and Jarvis gets into the passenger seat in the front. She's confused for a moment before she remembers that he's going to see someone in the city about getting some sort of computer processor for Tony, at Howard's request. Always pushing, even now. She wonders if Tony will ever prove himself enough for Howard to be satisfied. Perhaps when he's completed whatever Howard wants him to do with the arc reactor technology, which has gathered dust in California since the Expo, years ago now.

It starts to rain as they leave Queens, and Maria watches the raindrops hammer against the window as they drive along. She doesn't see the car that loses control and slams headlong into them, going far too fast to slow down, the rain making it impossible to avoid the collision. She's aware of Howard shouting her name, and then the impact swallows her up and kills her outright.

{swan song}

Maria Stark is buried next to her husband on a dark, cloudy day, uncharacteristic for July. Over four thousand people attend the public ceremony. Her husband's business partner stands at the shoulder of her son as the coffins are lowered into the earth, and under his influence, Tony Stark follows in his father's footsteps until he is nearly killed in Afghanistan, years later.

Howard Stark never lives to see his son take the technology he started to build with Anton Vanko decades before and improve it beyond recognition. Maria Stark never lives to see her son turn from hurting people to helping them on a larger scale than she could have ever dreamed of doing herself.

By the time Tony Stark helps save the world from an alien invasion and single-handedly prevents New York City being wiped out by a nuclear missile, not a single person in the USA doesn't know his name. Everyone in the world knows the identity of the man in the Iron Man suit.

Of the generation in school at that time, most of them would be hard pressed to recall the names of either of his parents.


End file.
